TV: GEORGE C. SCOTT IN 'OLIVER TWIST'

By JOHN J. O'CONNOR

Published: March 23, 1982

Tonight's new version of ''Oliver Twist'' on CBS-TV comes laden with a long list of imposing credits. George C. Scott stars as Fagin. The script was written by James Goldman, whose credits include an Academy Award for ''The Lion in Winter.'' And Clive Donner directed an outstanding British cast that includes Tim Curry as Bill Sikes, Timothy West as Mr. Bumble, Eileen Atkins as Mrs. Mann, Cherie Lunghi as Nancy and Michael Hordern as Mr. Brownlow. Young Richard Charles has the title role.

Unfortunately, the finished production fails to equal the sum of its parts. For one thing, except on a superficial story-primer level, there is very little Dickens here. Perhaps the marathon stage production of ''Nicholas Nickleby'' has ruined the Dickens market for adaptations that are not crammed with the rich details that are the essence of the novels. But, then again, David Lean, the British director, managed to turn two Dickens works -''Great Expectations'' and ''Oliver Twist'' - into film classics, each running for only about two hours.

For another and far more damaging thing, television's ''Oliver Twist'' is saddled with Mr. Scott's puzzling interpretation of Fagin, the Jewish moneylender who trains young ragamuffins to be pickpockets. Arguments can be made that Fagin is a genuinely anti-Semitic creation. He is certainly a source of continuing controversy. Alec Guiness's interpretation of the character provoked protests from some Jewish groups and kept the Lean film out of American circulation for a number of years.

Mr. Scott goes to the other extreme. In an artistic decision that can only be called patronizing, he has ''sanitized'' Fagin. There is no distinctive London Jewish accent. In fact, there is no accent at all. As everyone else around him speaks in pronounced cockney or upper-class accents, Mr. Scott has adopted a neutral trans-Atlantic delivery of his lines.

Beyond this, he goes distressingly far out of his way to make Fagin a thoroughly sympathetic figure. The old boy traipses about genially, worrying about the safety of his urchin wards, calling them ''my dears'' and chucking them fondly under the chin. I'm sure that Mr. Scott and Mr. Goldman can point to all sorts of ''hints'' in the original text to support this unusual interpretation, but the sorry fact is that the sheer terror that the novel evokes has been just about totally lost.

This may be a more ''acceptable'' Fagin for some viewers, but he has little or nothing to do with Dickens. Oddly enough, Mr. Scott's humanizing touches sometimes have unexpected effects. Instead of being merely a greedy scoundrel, Fagin begins to seem like a dirty old man. His relationship with the Artful Dodger (Martin Tempest) takes on the contours of a full-fledged love affair.

There are delicious bits of acting business scattered throughout this production. Miss Atkins and Mr. West are especially memorable with their broad strokes of petty machinations. But the pacing seems curiously rushed as the story hurtles crisply from scene to scene. As Oliver, Mr. Charles doesn't have to do much more than peer angelically into the camera occasionally, his blond hair projecting the prettiness of the boy on the Dutch Boy paint cans.

With Fagin refusing to snarl and threaten as a good villain should, we are left with Dickens's sentimental seams showing, as Oliver, no matter how distressing his circumstances, remains always the young gentleman, the always recognizable product of his upper-class genes.

PBS's ''American Playhouse'' presentation is ''Pilgrim, Farewell,'' a film made in 1980 by Michael Roemer. Kate, a 39-year-old woman living in Vermont with a man named Paul, is dying of cancer. She is not calmly resigned to her impending death. Complicating matters considerably is her estranged 19-year-old daughter, Ann, whom she had abandoned years earlier.

After the death of her father, Ann inherited a good deal of money but eventually ended up trying to commit suicide. She is having an undemanding affair with another woman.

Kate is joined by her younger sister, Rebecca, who turns out to be pregnant. When Kate is not attacking Rebecca, suspecting her of having an affair with Paul, she is in often violent confrontation with Ann, reaching out for a reconciliation but usually ending up in exasperated bitterness.

Paul becomes a virtually silent figure in the background, as Kate, Ann and Rebecca verbally lacerate one another about the botched past and the limited future. Meanwhile, Kate goes on dying, conceding that ''I'm doing this so badly.''

Mr. Roemer, who made a public-television documentary entitled ''Dying,'' has said that ''Pilgrim, Farewell'' is meant to be less about death than the changing state of women, about how they are becoming ''fiercely independent and self-reliant.''

His portrait has powerful moments, but it is almost unrelievedly grim, at times as exasperating as the plight of its characters. It is often a very nasty little film. But it contains two memorable performances - Elizabeth Huddle as Kate, and Laurie Prange as Ann. Together, they generate an intensity that verges on being frightening.